No Arabic abstract
The main aim of the ESS$ u$SB proposal is the discovery of the leptonic CP phase $delta_{CP}$ with a high significance ($5sigma$ for 50% values of $delta_{CP}$) by utilizing the physics at the second oscillation maxima of the $P_{mu e}$ channel. It can achieve $3sigma$ sensitivity to hierarchy for all values of $delta_{CP}$. In this work, we concentrate on the hierarchy and octant sensitivity of the ESS$ u$SB experiment. We show that combining the ESS$ u$SB experiment with the atmospheric neutrino data from the proposed India-based Neutrino Observatory(INO) experiment can result in an increased sensitivity to mass hierarchy. In addition, we also combine the results from the ongoing experiments T2K and NO$ u$A assuming their full runtime and present the combined sensitivity of ESS$ u$SB + ICAL@INO + T2K + NO$ u$A. We show that while by itself ESS$ u$SB can have up to $3sigma$ hierarchy sensitivity, the combination of all the experiments can give up to $5sigma$ sensitivity depending on the true hierarchy-octant combination. The octant sensitivity of ESS$ u$SB is low by itself. However the combined sensitivity of all the above experiments can give up to $3sigma$ sensitivity depending on the choice of true hierarchy and octant. We discuss the various degeneracies and the synergies that lead to the enhanced sensitivity when combining different experimental data.
The $ u_e$ appearance data of T2K experiment has given a glimpse of the allowed parameters in the hierarchy-$delta_{CP}$ parameter space. In this paper, we explore how this data affects our expectations regarding the hierarchy sensitivity of the NO$ u$A experiment. For the favourable combinations of hierarchy and $delta_{CP}$, the hierarchy sensitivity of NO$ u$A is unaffected by the addition of T2K data. For the unfavourable combinations, NO$ u$A data gives degenerate solutions. Among these degenerate solutions, T2K data prefers IH and $delta_{CP}$ in the lower half plane over NH and $delta_{CP}$ in the upper half plane. Hence, addition of the T2K data to NO$ u$A creates a bias towards IH and $delta_{CP}$ in the lower half plane irrespective of what the true combination is.
Leptonic textit{CP} violation search, neutrino mass hierarchy determination, and the precision measurement of oscillation parameters for a unitary test of the leptonic mixing matrix are among the major targets of the ongoing and future neutrino oscillation experiments. The work explores the physics reach for these targets by around 2027, when the third generation of the neutrino experiments starts operation, with a combined sensitivity of three experiments: T2K-II, NO$ u$A extension, and JUNO. It is shown that a joint analysis of these three experiments can conclusively determine the neutrino mass hierarchy. Also, at certain values of emph{true} dcp, it provides closely around a $5sigma$ confidence level (C.L.) to exclude textit{CP}-conserving values and more than a $50%$ fractional region of emph{true} $delta_{text{CP}}$ values can be explored with a statistic significance of at least a $3sigma$ C.L. Besides, the joint analysis can provide unprecedented precision measurements of the atmospheric neutrino oscillation parameters and a great offer to solve the $theta_{23}$ octant degeneracy in the case of nonmaximal mixing.
ESS$ u$SB is a proposed neutrino super-beam project at the ESS facility. We study the performance of this setup in the presence of a light eV-scale sterile neutrino, considering 540 km baseline with 2 years (8 years) of $ u$ ($bar u$) run-plan. This baseline offers the possibility to work around the second oscillation maximum, providing high sensitivity towards CP-violation (CPV). We explore in detail its capability in resolving CPV generated by the standard CP phase $delta_{13}$, the new CP phase $delta_{14}$, and the octant of $theta_{23}$. We find that the sensitivity to CPV induced by $delta_{13}$ deteriorates noticeably when going from $3 u$ to 4$ u$ case. The two phases $delta_{13}$ and $delta_{14}$ can be reconstructed with a 1$sigma$ uncertainty of $sim15^0$ and $ sim35^0$ respectively. Concerning the octant of $theta_{23}$, we find poor sensitivity in both $3 u$ and $4 u$ schemes. Our results show that a setup like ESS$ u$SB working around the second oscillation maximum with a baseline of 540 km, performs quite well to explore CPV in 3$ u$ scheme, but it is not optimal for studying CP properties in 3+1 scheme.
The relatively large measured value of $theta_{13}$ has opened up the possibility of determining the neutrino mass hierarchy through earth matter effects. Amongst the current accelerator-based experiments only NOvA has a long enough baseline to observe earth matter effects. However, NOvA is plagued with uncertainty on the knowledge of the true value of $delta_{CP}$, and this could drastically reduce its sensitivity to the neutrino mass hierarchy. The earth matter effect on atmospheric neutrinos on the other hand is almost independent of $delta_{CP}$. The 50 kton magnetized Iron CALorimeter at the India-based Neutrino Observatory (ICAL@INO) will be observing atmospheric neutrinos. The charge identification capability of this detector gives it an edge over others for mass hierarchy determination through observation of earth matter effects. We study in detail the neutrino mass hierarchy sensitivity of the data from this experiment simulated using the Nuance based generator developed for ICAL@INO and folded with the detector resolutions and efficiencies obtained by the INO collaboration from a full Geant4-based detector simulation. The data from ICAL@INO is then combined with simulated data from T2K, NOvA, Double Chooz, RENO and Daya Bay experiments and a combined sensitivity study to the mass hierarchy is performed. With 10 years of ICAL@INO data combined with T2K, NOvA and reactor data, one could get about $2.3sigma-5.7sigma$ discovery of the neutrino mass hierarchy, depending on the true value of $sin^2theta_{23}$ [0.4 -- 0.6], $sin^22theta_{13}$ [0.08 -- 0.12] and $delta_{CP}$ [0 -- 2$pi$].
We study in detail the impact of a light sterile neutrino in the interpretation of the latest data of the long baseline experiments NO$ u$A and T2K, assessing the robustness/fragility of the estimates of the standard 3-flavor parameters with respect to the perturbations induced in the 3+1 scheme. We find that all the basic features of the 3-flavor analysis, including the weak indication ($sim$1.4$sigma$) in favor of the inverted neutrino mass ordering, the preference for values of the CP-phase $delta_{13} sim 1.2pi$, and the substantial degeneracy of the two octants of $theta_{23}$, all remain basically unaltered in the 4-flavor scheme. Our analysis also demonstrates that it is possible to attain some constraints on the new CP-phase $delta_{14}$. Finally, we point out that, differently from non-standard neutrino interactions, light sterile neutrinos are not capable to alleviate the tension recently emerged between NO$ u$A and T2K in the appearance channel.